Language teachers' motivation and self is essential to their long-term commitment and professional development. Drawing on Language Teacher Self theory, the study reports on the professional experiences of seven teachers teaching languages other than English (LOTEs) in a Chinese university with shifting teacher appraisal policy. The findings revealed that majority of the participants were motivated to join the profession to pursue an academic career. They primarily built their teacher ought-to self on students' expectations and were able to reduce the self-discrepancy through self-regulatory efforts. Comparatively, they had more challenges to realise their researcher ought-to self derived from the research policy that privileges English publications. In response, they made strategic efforts to connect with English research through cross-linguistic collaboration and learn to write English by positioning themselves as international scholars. The findings highlight the motivating impact of ought-to self on language teachers' professional development. Implications are discussed on how to facilitate the professional development of LOTEs teachers in higher education.